Unjust inheritance tax

A fairy tale . The next fairy godmother would be a spanish woman. Attenttion. Joanna Bogle writes from London to Mercatornet a tale o f two sisters that I can’t believe that is real. The sisters are in a very good mood, but… Joanna saids that “two English sisters have shared a home for years. It has been a real family home, serving different generations. In it, they have cared for various elderly and frail relatives over the years, provided hospitality, built up the links that help to form family networks.

If Joyce and Sybil Burden had proclaimed themselves lesbians and formed a “civil partnership” they would get a massive advantage: when one of them died, the other would receive the whole of the property, tax-free. But they are not lesbians and have no wish to pretend to be. They have a normal and natural bond: they are sisters. So, under our tax laws, when one dies the other will have to pay a massive 40 per cent tax on the property if she wishes to remain living there.

Daft? Of course. Unjust? Undoubtedly. So the sisters took their case to the courts – and eventually to the European court. And now they’ve had the final ruling: they do not qualify for any tax benefits as their situation cannot be compared to marriage or a civil partnership — in short, because they are not lesbians. So the inheritance tax must be paid in full.

“Rather than the length or the supportive nature of the relationship, what was determinative was the existence of a public undertaking, carrying with it a body of rights and obligations of a contractual nature,” the court piously explained”.